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Now that you understand why you must do this, put on the helm, son of Hermes. The Titan King ordered, somehow both compassionate and full of authority. I wish to show you all that the gods have chosen to hide from you.
He stared at the dark helm in his hands. It was like it was pulsing between his fingers.
He could feel radiant heat pulsing through it just like what the Master Bolt gave off. This wasn’t like the Bolt.
The Bolt was a symbol of authority, but a projectile weapon first and foremost. A fusion reactor perpetually a degree short of going supercritical, electrons torn right off the shells of copper and iron atoms at the weapon’s core. Fusion and fission feeding off each other in a feedback loop that tore the target apart molecule by molecule, protein by protein.
You stopped being biology, and started being physics.
The Helm of Darkness was a weapon for a god who knew that all things came into his domain eventually. Physically heavier in a way his fingers struggled against as he tried to raise it. The inside pulled against his fingers like some kind of black hole. Light, matter, energy, it didn’t matter. If it wasn’t immortal, or magical, it would belong to Hades soon enough.
Death was patient in a way nothing else could be.
Being that close to anything that constantly reminded you that your days were very numbered and encountering Hades was a matter of when, not if would drive any rational animal mad.
Luke Castellan wondered if that made him mad.
This was it. The point of no return. Once he did this, he was in this for the long haul.
Understood, Kronos.
He froze. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. His legs shaking under him. He almost wanted the shoes his father had chosen today of all days to give him as a gift to send him flying. To take this choice away from him.
Nothing.
Eight years, about to commit one of the worst crimes against Olympus that he knew of, and his father was hanging him out to dry.
The helmet nicked the scar on his cheek as he lifted it over his head.
Ow!
He soothed it with his finger.
A permanent reminder of the gods’ bad timing. Left behind by a dragon’s claw.
Ladon.
A re-run of Heracles’s punishment that Luke was ‘supposed’ to see as a reward to be grateful for.
His finger slipped back down as he finished putting the helm on. In an instant, the world completely changed.
The world of the gods was suddenly almost pitch-black darkness, held together by a patchwork of small torches and candles. By contrast, the light from the sky above at this time of night was nearly blinding.
Searing whites, blues and purples forced him to put his hands over his eyes and look back down at the almost-obsidian black marble beneath him.
Put a storm in the sky, and it almost looked like—
Othrys? The Titan King mused. Yes. It would shock many to learn how many patterns of mine my children… appropriated.
He stared at Olympus in awe and shock.
Look at their Olympus, son of Hermes. As much as they try to hide it, their world is drenched in darkness.
The marble of Zeus’s throne under the red-shifted light was the color of soot and ash.
Your father looked you over, and passed you by. He lent you another man’s quest. Another hero’s glory to steal, to become a footnote in someone else’s punishment.
He put his hand out, watching it shimmer in front of his own eyes as the Helm did its work. The air felt charged with electricity as his hand pressed into the cold, hard surface of the back of Zeus’s throne…
…and passed through it straight into the marble.
He paused, stunned for a second.
“When you pass through stuff in the movies, they always say it’s like the wall isn’t even there. But… it is. I can feel the rock there. It’s just…”
Now I intend to make you the greatest thief to ever live. Return the Bolt to me, and what I will give you in return is a weapon that would make even these mere sticks and stones by comparison.
Ten million tiny rocks and pebbles lightly scratched against the skin of his fingers as he pushed forward. Like he wasn’t passing through the rock, but each of his cells—atoms, probably—were elegantly weaving a path around them that let him pass through. He leaned forward, pressing his weight onto his right foot to reach through the throne and take the Bolt from the rear.
If the Bolt slips through the throne and vanished, they’ll assume that Zeus summoned it.
Don’t take me at my word, son of Hermes. Let me show you that these rebellious children of mine would rather play games than fight for a cause that matters.
His fingers were within millimeters of contact before—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Footsteps.
Go for it, boy!
Burning coldness like cooking his mind in liquid nitrogen rose to a boil in the back of his skull.
His fingers twitched over the Bolt’s handle.
If it’s a camper, I could run it. If it’s one of the gods though…
He brought his hand back and turned away.
…then don’t bother running.
He turned, knowing that he could not be seen or heard. His eyes laid on her…
Woah.
She was… beautiful. Fiery red hair the color of roses in springtime, warm amber eyes like freshly-tilled soil, wearing an emerald green dress sewn of grass blades and flowers.
She seemed to be carrying a small garden with her feet as the mound of topsoil shifted.
“Please, I know you’re there.” She said, laughing quietly to herself. “Take the helm off. Talk with me a while.”
Who does she—
—nevermind. She knows I’m here. Need to talk my way out of this.
“What are you doing still up?” He tried, deepening his voice a bit, leaning into the Hermes Kid Charm, TM.
Rolling back his shoulders, shifting on the balls of his feet, letting his arms rest at his sides.
At ease.
“Death does not slumber, and neither do I.” She answered, narrowing her eyes at him. Looking over his posture.
Right. Forgot about that.
“I believe the mortals call that ‘being a workaholic’.” He smiled, meeting her eyes. “Please, it’s a time of celebration. Enjoy yourself.”
Her eyes focused on him more intently now, mouth slightly open in…surprise?…confusion?…before she made a strange snorting sound like one of the pigs he’d heard coming from Demeter’s chamber earlier.
“You’re learn—” then she stopped cold again.
He watched those amber eyes turn icy as frost gathered across them. A tiny field in her pupil froze over as the summer heat yielded to winter snow that dusted the tilled rows off-white.
“Son of Hermes,” she said more softly, sounding like she’d just seen one bad storm wipe out a season of labor, “why do you do this?”
Her eyes narrowed as she focused on him.
“What do you mean?” He tried, aiming NOT to blow his cover when he’d come this close…
“My husband is many things, Luke Castellan.” She murmured, then gave a gentle, forgiving sigh, “A charmer is not one of them.” Stepping towards him and shrinking down to human size. “A fact he knows well, and has learned not to be ashamed of.”
He’d never heard someone say his name like she did. Like him standing here was breaking her heart into pieces. Or about Hades like he was just another awkward teenager trying to figure out how he’d scored her.
She laughed at the idea of it. “A death god does not a playboy make…”
“I knew the moment you attempted to charm me that you were not my husband. My husband is kind, compassionate, generous. But a charmer? No.” She laughed again. “Far more reserved, anxious, even shy. That was why I chose him. Zeus was…”
She gestured to the marble throne behind him like the name was explanation enough. “…a playboy that slept with anything that moved. Poseidon was…”
So that’s where Dad gets it from.
Another marble throne, where the trident was oddly missing. Missing too, was any reverence for it. “…a very loyal man that had difficulty listening to what other people wanted instead of giving them what he thought they wanted.”
Finally, a third throne made of metal and bone that he’d noticed before but hadn’t connected to its master. “Hades was…a man whose only failing was being afraid of losing the woman he loved. Of acting in fear of loss.”
Her fingers darted to the thrones, right to left. “Zeus talked, Poseidon gave,” and pointing to that metal throne, “Hades listened.” She remembered fondly.
“…listened?” He found himself asking despite himself.
No one had ever talked about the Big Three like this.
“I was…taken,” she said, like she was using the most generous wording possible, “…by Zeus. Zeus was the youngest of the brothers, and you could tell. His brother was infatuated, and he tried to help. As for Hades…he had no idea how to charm a woman, so he tried his best to get to know me. He knew only in hindsight that our first date had been a date.”
“He…made you eat a date. You got stuck in the Underworld for half the year.” He insisted.
She merely shook her head slowly.
“If you read that story, you would know it was my mother who raised Hell, not me.”
She gestured to Demeter’s throne with an expression he recognized from Grover earlier: distaste.
“In the Underworld, I am Queen of the Dead. On Olympus, I am Demeter’s helpless daughter trapped by an ancient act of desperation in a gilded cage. I will let you judge which I prefer.”
“I…I could be Hermes.” He mused, remembering that he was supposed to be maintaining his cover instead of listening to her story. He relaxed his body and leaned against the back of Zeus’s throne like he belonged here as much as any of them did.
Which was strange, because from the way she was talking about them, he felt like he did.
“No, you couldn’t.” She said, dismissing the ploy with a absent wave of her fingers. “Your father is currently preparing himself for the 2005 World Series of Poker.”
A poker game? Really? That’s what I lost first place on the to-do list to?
“I. His son. Lost to a poker game.” He muttered, trying not to sound as livid as he felt because he knew it wouldn’t do him any good. “I’ll try not to hate him for that.”
She looked to a spot above his head—Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada.
“That is a conversation between you and him, I have no part in it. If it is one he refuses to have, or make time for, then that falls to him, not you.” She said, and he felt his breath catch.
“You aren’t… going to defend him?”
She waved off the idea like a bad omen.
“I think the god of commerce, roads, travelers and thieves is capable of defending himself if it truly matters to him. As is typical of your father,” she gave a tired smile that told him it was a familiar trick she’d gotten wise to a long time ago, “you dodge my question swiftly.”
She smirked like a woman who’d been fooled and didn’t mind it one bit.
The dead field became overgrown with weeds as she studied him again. The grief buried in unwelcome green.
“Why do you do this? Whose orders are you acting on?”
Luke stepped back.
“What gives you the impression I’m doing someone else’s dirty work?” He snapped, more defensive than he’d meant.
She gestured to the Helm on his head.
“Because you’re a good man, Luke. This behavior is deeply unlike you. Why do this?”
She’s stalling, son of Hermes.
He shifted his body to lean against the side of Zeus’s throne, checking on it out of the corner of his eye.
“Isn’t it obvious?” He asked, resisting the urge to soothe his scar. “The gods are terrible parents. If they aren’t lashing out at us, or drip-feeding us quests to satisfy their own egos, they’re pretending we don’t exist and ignoring us.”
“They are not perfect partners either,” she…agreed?…picking up a strand of her own hair and brushing it absent-mindedly. “Lying, manipulating, betraying trust. They say one thing, mean another.”
She rubbed what he realized was a wedding ring on her ring finger.
“Make one oath, honor another.”
She caught his eye again.
“Many times, they are not worthy of the heroes they sire, but how does that lead to…this theft?”
For about a minute, Luke just stood there, frozen in silence—as the goddess of spring culled the weeds from the frozen field, and grew his argument for him.
“They need to change. They’ve never had to, but this was too far. You invited us to Olympus for a camp field trip, and then shut us out the moment we wanted to meet the parents we’ve heard about, prayed to, made offerings to…for years.”
She nodded along, gesturing for him to keep talking.
“Chiron told me that when we made offerings to the gods, the smell of food would catch their attention. Make them…want to listen.” He said, trying to put this into words when he hadn’t really put it into words before.
She nodded slowly. “We do.”
“And I did, I really did.” He said, getting heated in a way he hadn’t expected.
He hadn’t realized he had so much on his chest, but now that it was coming, he couldn’t stop. “I prayed every meal at Camp for years and years, thinking this was another set of rules. Mom had them, the gods have them, easy enough. As long as you do it all like they ask, they’ll listen. I poured my soul out for those kids. I told them what Chiron told me. ‘When the gods are ready to tell you where you fit into all of this, you’ll know’.”
Another nod. At this point, he was just talking because it was the first time he’d been able to get this stuff off of his chest.
Kronos was a powerful ally, but no friend, and not someone you bared your soul to.
“I thought maybe, just maybe, if I gave those kids what I never had…if I do everything by the book, play by all your rules, do it all right. Engage with you on your own terms, maybe my dad would throw me a bone.”
He pointed to the scar on his cheek frantically.
“And what did I get for all of that?” He said, his voice raising to a shout but he didn’t care right now. “My dad’s reward for all my praying is somebody else’s punishment!”
He went on, and still, she didn’t stop him.
“And even then,” he raised his shaky finger, “I played along.”
His voice was shaking now. So much anger, so much pain, all of it bleeding out into the words that struggled to hold it. “I did the quest! I went to the tree! I gave it my all! I tried to get one of those apples! And what did I end up with after risking my life for something I didn’t even want just to make dear old Dad pay me attention?”
His heart was pounding in his chest now. Every muscle tense like tempered steel. Breathing hard. “All I got was a scarred face, and the great Camp Half-Blood ‘Thanks for trying, BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!’”
His voice dropped, seeming almost as broken as her expression was. He felt a tear laying down roots in his shirt.
“Getting parents to care about their children, pay even the slightest attention to them…making sure that good kids just trying to take the days as they come aren’t just orphans with a better foster family…that should not be a Sisyphean task!”
He breathed slowly, steadily, trying to calm himself down.
“So it begs the question,” he grimaced, forcing a smile the way he’d always done.
Smiling the way he did when Mom shouted at him for leaving the oven on, for getting into another fight, for playing Poker with the guys at the K-Mart parking lot downtown to help Mom pay the bills, smiling that same forced smile as he tried to tell Annabeth crying in an old lumber mill that everything was going to be okay even if he knew damned well it wouldn’t be.
“what do you gods care about, if your kids apparently aren’t near the top of the priority list?”
The Queen of the Dead stared at the Bolt in acknowledgment.
“Our symbols of power…would be at the top of the list. Fair enough.” She sighed, staring down at her feet as a few roses drooped. “You have endured more suffering than anyone should ever know, and all through it, you did the best you could. Which is a Hell of a lot more than the ones sitting in those thrones behind you can say for themselves.”
“So you understand why I’m doing this?”
“Understanding? Sort of. Not agreeing.”
“Okay, I guess…I hate using her as a token like this, but…she was the…”
He looked at her, searching for the right metaphor, and remembering what she’d told him.
“The only one who listened.” He said, staring down at his sneakers. Dirt had covered them months ago, and he’d gotten tired of cleaning them just to see them get dirty again.
“Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus.” She nodded. “Help me understand this, Luke. Help me understand what happened to you.”
“She ran away from home. Like I did. Zeus’s kid, she never took anything from anyone. A lesson I should’ve taken from her, but I didn’t. I guess I…”
“…were too young to understand?” Persephone asked, “am I understanding you so far?”
He nodded slowly.
“I always figured it would work out. After my dad left, well…I don’t remember all the details myself, but she went crazy—Mom, I mean. Saw the future. Drove her mad. She got meds for it, and we were kind of okay for a while, but…I grew up. I started having issues. I was a charmer, a fast talker, and I liked to get myself into trouble. Stressed her out, and all of it together…the meds stopped working. She got on new ones, but stopped takin’ ‘em. Said she—”
He paused, forcing the words up out of his throat as they choked him.
“…didn’t wanna forget me.”
His hands were shaking. Badly.
“Funny,” he said, trying to laugh the way he’d laughed at everything else, “how terrible parents rhyme. Mine stopped taking her meds, Thalia’s couldn’t stop and that was her whole problem.”
“It was me and Thalia. The son of the god of thieves and messengers, with a schoolteacher mom living off a pension and Social Security. And…the daughter of the King of the Gods, rich enough from her mom that she didn’t fit in with most kids, not rich enough to get into a cushy private school. She never really fit in anywhere, and neither did I. We thought we could take on the world. We spent most of the time arguing we could take on each other.”
“Who won?” She asked quietly.
“Her. Every time. Not even close.” Luke actually laughed, then grew quiet again. “What I wouldn’t give to lose to that arrogant kid one last time.”
No, by all means, take your time. You’re just committing the most important theft in the history of humanity. No rush.
In that case, I think I will.
That is not what I-
“What do you think she would say?” Persephone asked, now tilting her head carefully.
“Huh?” He was genuinely confused.
“Thalia, I mean. If she were standing here now? I do not mean that as an accusation, I’m simply curious.” She said, softer now. “You speak of her with more fondness than many I have heard today. I am interested in how you answer.”
He breathed slowly, bracing himself, eyeing the Master Bolt as it sparked. He could see her in his mind’s eye, like she really was ‘standing here now’.
Hades was the reason she wasn’t.
Persephone was his wife.
And yet…
…what had the words been again? Make one oath, honor another?
“I…don’t know. Not anymore. I think she would tell me I’m doing the right thing, sticking it to the gods, making them pay, hurting them like we’ve been hurt, but…the gods are all about telling us what we want. I don’t want to do that to her. Put words in her mouth. Pretend I know what she wants better than she does.”
His voice broke slightly as he ran his fingers along the hilt of the Master Bolt, no longer understanding why it had appealed to him at all. It wouldn’t bring Thalia back.
“She deserves better than that. Better than being a token in someone else’s game of thrones and ego-stroking.”
He could see the treeline of Half-Blood Hill like he was still standing on the muddy grass of that night. It was bad, way worse than he’d realized. He’d thought she was bleeding. She wasn’t.
She was dying.
From CA to NY, through half the monsters on the Eastern seaboard, and she died to a Hellhound’s bite on Heaven’s front lawn.
Then again…hers was the death he’d seen. She’d known who her dad was even if he made no effort to prove her right. He’d grown up trying to be the brother to kids who didn’t even get that.
Somebody else’s Thalia had been hit by a car on I-31 in the middle of the night fleeing a monster from the depths of Hell not even knowing who their father was.
Lightning pulsed against his fingers. Living lightning. Like Thalia’s.
Starting a war among the gods may end up with a lot of people dying.
He remembered exactly how her voice sounded as the cyclops had imitated it. Begging for her life. How he’d run in, sword drawn, wondering what could possibly be making Thalia Grace beg for her life. Once he’d seen it, it had seemed so obvious.
Imitating Grover’s voice, then his.
Thalia Grace doesn’t beg. She goes down fighting.
Other kids who hadn’t survived it. Died to a monster they didn’t know existed, just trying to save the people they cared about, and being killed for it.
People are already dying.
“But this? This isn’t just about Thalia anymore. A lot of people have lost people they care about. I’m not doing this because my tragic story is special. I’m doing this because it’s not. For all the half-bloods that went ignored, died alone, convinced that no one wanted them.”
She stepped closer, holding his gaze.
“So that’s why? So you can start a war against the gods to take the love and attention they refuse to give?” She asked.
Still, there was no judgement in her voice. He was searching for it, and it wasn’t there.
“Zeus will realize it’s gone. He’ll blame Hades first, and Hades won’t back down because he doesn’t have it either. A stand-off.”
“Is that Kronos’s plan then?”
“How did you— where was Kronos in that?”
Her answer was calm and resolute.
“Taking love from your parents by force is why Ouranos was killed in the first place. Obsessed with a father that did not love him, a mother that made her love transactional. Any of that… sound familiar?”
“Maybe.”
“I have seen you with your friends, son of Hermes. You are far too kind, far too compassionate, far too diplomatic, to consider stealing Hades’s Helm, much less the Master Bolt, unless you were being manipulated.”
“I’m not being—” His hands reached for his sheath but stopped.
“You are not random,” she continued, unperturbed, “he couldn’t have chosen just any half-blood to do what you aim to do. He saw it in you, that righteous fury, that desperation to be loved and needed, and he used it. Like he used everyone else.”
“He isn’t using—”
“You told me you weren’t doing anyone else’s dirty work. So what are you doing for Kronos?”
“Taking his advice.”
“Taking his orders.” She corrected. “Your father, you say, uses you like a dog to fetch what he needs. And you prove his point by running to kneel at the feet of the one with the bigger stick?”
“I am not a dog!” He shouted.
She never raised her voice. That was the worst part.
“You are starting a war at Kronos’s word. Taking his advice. Trusting him not to lead you astray. You aren’t a dog, you’re just a fool. A good-hearted, idealistic, naive fool.”
“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen! You have no idea how much we go through just to matter!”
“And that, dear boy, is where you are wrong.” She said quietly.
Firm. Composed. Reasonable.
Diplomat, but Queen.
“You don’t know war, boy. You haven’t seen it. Not like I have. Not like my husband has. Bodies lying in trenches and holes, blood pouring in scarlet rivers, carnage that would make Ares puke.”
“You think I haven’t seen bodies in trenches? Haven’t seen people bleed out? You think I haven’t seen battle? Battle has been my life!”
“You saw it today. The indifference. You aren’t children to them, you’re hazards to be avoided, paparazzi to be dealt with. You aren’t people to them.”
“You—what?” He paused.
“You heard me.” She said. “Your father turned you down for a poker game. That isn’t parenting, that’s crowd control. You intend to address that by starting a war?”
“The only thing the gods have reacted to so far is battle, betrayal, a quest. Their own egos.” He argued, trying to make her understand.
“And you think that when this war plays out, you’re going to be burying gods?” She asked, blunt and cold.
“I—”
He froze again.
Because that made no sense.
“—no! I—”
“The gods have endured wars worse than you’ve ever known. The only ones that will be hurt by a war against the gods are their children, and I think you know that. I don’t think you’re cruel, or selfish, or petty. I think you’re a man who’s been stabbed in the back one too many times, put his hope in one too many failed plans, been betrayed by the shittiest circumstances known to mankind over and over and over again. You see yourself as out of options.”
“If you see another way to do this, I’m all ears.” He muttered more weakly.
“What you are asking me to do is tell you how to make people change, son of Hermes. We both know there are no guarantees. All you can do is provide opportunities for them to be better.”
“And if they don’t take them?”
She was about as subtle as a brick.
“Ask Pilate.”
“I…I just…” His shoulders sagged as he leaned fully against Zeus’s throne, exhausted even if he hadn’t moved the entire time. “I want the gods to try and be better. For the sake of their kids. I’m not asking for the world here, am I?”
“You are asking how to make people with free will make better choices. How to make people change. We both know that a hundred generations of the finest minds have been trying to find answers to that question. Invested endless resources into it. What makes you think my answer will be better than theirs?”
“You…you’ve seen more.” He waved his hands to his sides, “you’ve seen so many people, so many stories. You’ve listened to me.”
“You don’t think that’s relevant.”
“You’re right. I don’t. I just… don’t see any other way to do this.”
“Incorrect,” she said, and approached him. Finally, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t see any other way to do this that you think will work.”
“How… how do you know so much about… this?”
“My husband is the Lord of the Dead, his Court judges the good from the evil. So I think I am uniquely qualified to say that you need a reality check. I have met your heroes, and your villains, and they are neither as kind nor as cruel as you remember them to be. So stop trying to tell them what they are, and let them tell you.”
Can we go now?
“How do I know you aren’t just trying to talk me out of this?”
“You stand here because you were willing to let Kronos talk you into this.”
“You could be lying.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I am not. Learn to tolerate uncertainty, son of Hermes. Such a skill will serve you well. Many of the problems we face now were because gods could not tolerate the uncertainty of Fate.”
“I’m at the end of my rope.” He admitted. “I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t keep selling the party line to new campers like this, not when I know for sure that the gods don’t care. I need a Hail Mary.”
“And you pledge your loyalty to a titan king for a move named after calling down divine intervention when you’ve nothing left to lose.”
“Nothing left to lose? Try tired of losing.” He countered. “The gods have left people to die left and right. Done nothing to stop the suffering until the bodies were at their door.”
And then, that same register he’d dipped into when he’d first needled Persephone just enough to make Hades abandon his Helm for her.
“I’m done pretending that the pen is mightier than the sword, at least for the gods.”
“Do you know what happens to those who are endlessly loyal to Kronos?” She asked softly.
“What?” He asked.
She gestured to the sky.
“Ask his wife.” She said.
“I’m sorry?”
She looked at him carefully.
“Alright, I’ll rephrase.”
She stood close enough that she could not be heard by anyone else.
“Ask him about his wife. What happened to eager young Rhea ready to birth a prince?”
She was good to me.
“He consumed her children.” Luke whispered.
“Again,” she said, icy cold, “and again, and again. There is no line he won’t cross to stay in power.”
She stood back now, like she’d said nothing at all.
“If you betray him, he will kill you without a second thought. If you are absolutely loyal to him, doing all he asks, then he will burn down everything that makes your life worth living.”
Then, finally, she growled.
“You want a shattered family? He invented the term. He birthed the very concept of leaving your children to rot in darkness. Is that really the person you Ave Maria?”
“I was there.” She said, like the memory alone was burning her. “I felt it. I know what it’s like to be hopeless, I swear that on the River Styx. But it isn’t over.”
“Follow Kronos,” she said, taking a step back, “take the Master Bolt as you intend, and you will be standing here four years from now watching your world burn, your friends die, wishing you’d died here. Willing to die rather than experience what he calls ‘paradise’.”
He waited for the punishment.
Then, he realized this was the punishment.
“If you’re right about me and paradise,” he said, nodding slowly, his mind made, “then you know that if I’m going to die, it’s going to be because I did it myself for reasons that matter.”
“Then you will die a martyr.”
“That’s the difference mortals and gods, Lady Persephone. I know what it’s like to find a cause worth dying for. You don’t.”
She went very quiet just then. Knowing he was beyond reason now. “For what it’s worth, son of Hermes,” she whispered, “I did. Then he made one oath, and honored another.”
Luke Castellan picked up the Bolt.
Looked at her.
And left.